


Yet you're my favourite work of art

by Beleriandings



Series: And up and down, and fast and slow [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Art Galleries, Canon-Typical Pining, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Requited Love, Sculpture, offscreen Michelangelo cameo, references to the Renaissance, sappiness ahead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 11:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20723372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: On one of their post-Apocalyptic art gallery trips, Aziraphale and Crowley encounter a statue that looks oddly familiar.





	Yet you're my favourite work of art

Their trips to the art gallery had, on the whole, neither decreased in number nor changed much in general progression, following the Apocalypse. Except that now, they tended to conduct them arm-in-arm, or even, if they really felt like pushing the boat out, hand-in-hand.

(And sometimes, if they were given a stern talking to by security for making out in front of the Rubens like a pair of teenagers on a class trip, then it was all part of the lark, wasn’t it?)

Except today was different; sometimes, you see, the familiar exhibits changed too.

“Oh, my goodness me” said Aziraphale, clasping Crowley’s arm, other hand going to his chest, like a Victorian lady engaged in paroxysms of deep emotion. “Is that...”

Crowley looked where he was pointing; a statue that hadn’t been there the last time they had come here, on a plinth of its own in the middle of the room. And as he squinted, its familiarity became suddenly, extremely, embarrassingly apparent.

Aziraphale was squinting too, pushing gently but determinedly past a gaggle of young schoolchildren wielding worksheets to get closer. “The resemblance is uncanny” he said, brows furrowing in puzzlement, as he knelt down to look at the plaque. “_A__n an__gel __in repose_, circa 1550-1560” he read. “…In a near-miraculous state of preservation… attributed to Michaelangelo...perhaps completed by one of his students. The date… but I don’t remember posing for - ” his frown deepened. “Surely it’s not my imagination, Crowley. And I don’t mean to flatter myself, dear boy, but do you see the resemblance?”

Crowley had to bite back the words that came as first impulse. “Mmm” he said instead, non-committal. “Looks a bit like you. I guess.” In truth, the resemblance was exact; Aziraphale’s likeness wrought in marble, wings held resplendent and unbroken, feathers cut from the stone in meticulous detail.

“Oh, but it’s _beautiful_ work_”_ he said. “How odd. They’ve even got the wings just right; you know how much sculpture gets the wings all wrong, doesn’t it, but these… and, hmm, the artist certainly was flattering in some other...anatomical departments...ah, yes, that too...oh, goodness, surely I can’t really be so...” he made a complicated sort of gesture. He was blushing, and Crowley was fighting the impulse to turn into a snake right there and then in middle of the gallery. “But oh!” said Aziraphale, again. “Don’t I look ever so _happy_, my dear” He came around the other side of the statue, standing so that he was shoulder to shoulder with Crowley again, and took his hand between them once more, but gave him a rather keen look at the very same time. “You know, I don’t recall ever being quite so joyous as that. And so very calm.” He was beaming, not entirely guileless if you knew what to look for. It was that way he had of smiling at you, as though he knew something no one else did. _Smug bastard_, thought Crowley, lovingly, helplessly. Aziraphale leaned in to whisper in Crowley’s ear. “Except for the times when I was with you, of course.”

“Nnng” said Crowley again, turning away. “Well, did you ever get drunk with Michaelangelo? Maybe you modelled for it and don’t remember, angel. Wouldn’t put it past you.” He patted Aziraphale’s curls against his shoulder, awkwardly. “Forget your own head next, et cetera.”

“….Perhaps.” Aziraphale pulled back, looking at him keenly. “Well, I suppose if _I_ don’t remember, then its origin is lost to history. Still, a shame, though.” He smiled, practically glowing with it. “Someone must have commissioned it. Fancy someone receiving a statue of me, when perhaps they wanted a generic angel. I suppose I’ve never been what you’d call the most representative of that lot, even back then...”

“You’d have been a dreadful bore if you were” Crowley reminded him. “I prefer you this way.”

“Oh, no doubt” said Aziraphale, looking back at him, knowingly, with a slight elbow in his ribs, nodding at the statue. “And what way is that, then, while we’re on the subject? Soft, gorgeous, well-endowed to the point of being slightly alarming, and reclining lavishly across a stylish little...why it’s the oddest thing, but that chaise and drapery looks so like the set-up I had in my rooms in Rome, back in...hmm, when was it...early sixteenth century...”

“The style looks...thereabouts” conceded Crowley, weakly. “What a coincidence, eh angel?”

Aziraphale practically _smirked_, Satan bless him. “Indeed.”

* * *

Later that night, Aziraphale was propped up on one elbow in bed, watching Crowley as he fell asleep.

“You know, you don’t have to hide it, dear.” Aziraphale’s voice came floating into his incipient dream, making his eyes flicker open. “I know it was you.”

“Wha- hh?”

“That lovely statue. I guessed you commissioned it from the moment we saw it in the gallery. Don’t think I wasn’t asking around back then; I knew Michaelangelo, and I knew you knew him too.” Aziraphale made a face. “He was always making hints at me, about...our mutual friend… hmm, never mind.” He seemed to collect himself. “The point is, Crowley dear, the point _is_, you don’t have to be...” he ran the backs of his fingers down the side of Crowley’s face. “You don’t have to hide things anymore.”

Crowley stared up at him for a long, long moment. From here, Aziraphale head was haloed from behind by the soft glow of the reading light on the bedside table. _Typical_. He sighed. “...Fuck it” he said. “I... didn’t commission that statue, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale blinked. “Oh? Now, Crowley, please don’t think you need to pretend, anymore, now that we’re...”

“No! Didn’t mean that, I...” Crowley gave an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t commission it, okay? Just...there was a reason I hung around Michaelangelo’s studio so much back then. I’ve never been a very good patron of the arts, and sometimes stealing just doesn’t cut it, when you want a particular likeness.” He looked away, staring out of the crack in the curtains determinedly. “B’sides. Sometimes, there’s only so much that can be captured, when the artist’s only been looking at the subject for a few hours, days, even a few years. Even...a human lifetime...” he was having unwelcome memories return to him; stone dust on his fingers, under his nails, learning a skill with slow precision. Desperate longing, taking a chisel to stone to try to get it out. Taking longer about it than any human would or could; though his hands itched to race through, to snap it to perfection with a miracle, somehow Aziraphale’s likeness wouldn’t have felt _right_, like that.

“Crowley...”

He shrugged, a serpentine wiggle. “Devil’s in the details, angel. Um. So to speak. But you really think anyone _else_ could’ve got them all right?”

“...”

“Aziraphale? Are you okay?” He patted Aziraphale’s cheek tentatively, felt that it was wet with tears. “Oh, stop it. Don’t start crying on me now, we’re in bed with each other _now_ and it’s _fine_, it’s all fine now – _ohh_!”

He let out a soft little sound, embarrassingly vulnerable, as Aziraphale pulled him into his arms, hugging him close against his chest.

And then, a moment later, just as he was leaning his head into the soft bend of Aziraphale’s shoulder, a voice close to his ear. “I’m not really like that, though.”

“You are” said Crowley, squeezing his eyes closed, emboldened by the knowledge that Aziraphale couldn’t see him. “You are to me.”

Aziraphale paused for a moment, as though to collect himself; then he actually tutted. “Although, I must say, you got my thighs a bit wrong. Objectively speaking.”

“Oh, well, pardon me! Sorry if I wasn’t as intimately acquainted with your thighs back then as I wanted to be.”

He felt a grin, against his shoulder, slowly growing as Aziraphale rolled them over. “Well, there’s plenty of time for that, dear boy. Yes, that’s something that can most easily be remedied.”

“Well, if it’s for the sake of art” said Crowley, disentangling himself and rising up over Aziraphale, giving him a wink. “Then who am I to protest?”

“Yes” said Aziraphale, nodding distractedly. “For the sake of art. Most assuredly.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- Is this bookverse? TV-verse? I don't know! It's consistent with both so I've added both tags.
> 
> \- Confession time: I stole a lot of the premise of this fic from the very ending of the Doctor Who novel "The Stone Rose", by Jacqueline Rayner. I listened to the audiobook version of it circa 2008, and I don't really remember that much about it apart from some details? Must have Awakened Something in me though, since I'm writing Good Omens fic based on it in 2019. (Plus the audiobook is read by David Tennant which is appropriate, and also his Audiobook Voice is just *chef kiss* perfect)
> 
> \- The title is of course from the song My Funny Valentine....I like the [Ella Fitzgerald version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahE7lDYRrms) of it the best (and it's most appropriate for these two!) I imagine Crowley got Aziraphale the record at some point and he couldn't get all the way through listening to it because he started pining so much he had to sit down and take a break because....tenderness.......
> 
> \- Come join me on tumblr @kanafinwhy!!!


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